The Illusion of Loneliness

Sunburst at dawn, on Ben Lomond

I have come to consider myself as an expert mountaineer. Not because I’ve bloodied my fingers climbing up sheer cliffs or scaled particularly arduous or high peaks, but because when I get up there, I watch, listen and feel, and so enter a state of exquisite peace.

It is one of many gateways to present awareness – the state of true consciousness – where thinking falls away and the illusion of division from this Universe you live in vanishes. You are merged with nature. You are simply being.

I worked at a hotel in Borrowdale, in the English Lake District, last year (an area which has no mobile reception, at least for my carrier, Vodafone) and would walk up to the summit of Grange Fell (1,363ft) every few days to check my text messages and make a few phone calls.

I recall sitting there one day, looking down the valley towards Keswick, some five miles to the north, and realising – though there was nobody else around but me – that not for a moment did I feel ‘lonely’ when walking in the mountains.

It hit me that, like I’ve said about emotional pain in previous blogs, loneliness is also a phantom of the mind – the product of critical over-thinking. It’s why people say they can feel lonely in a crowded room. It is the mental dialogue that creates that sense of loneliness, rather than the actual situation.

Now, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, I never feel lonely. Yes, sometimes I am alone, but there is a great distinction between those two words: loneliness is a psychological illusion, fuelled by the egoic need to be recognised, whereas being alone is a physical fact and nothing to get down about.

These are some of the places I haven't been lonely... click on the images to see them full size:

The Watendlath Path - Borrowdale

Sunburst over Borrowdale

10/10/10 - Perfect Peace in Borrowdale

Grange Fell, Borrowdale, overlooking Derwentwater & Keswick

Loch Lomond, from about 3,100ft up Ben Lomond

Close to the summit of Ben Lomond